This book covers the whole gamut of secret weapons from the "Battle of the Beams" to the well documented jets of the Luftwaffe. The style of the book is not only very informative but it also captures the drama & the interpersonal rivalries. An excellent example of the latter is that of the dismissive response of Lord Cherwell to the reports that the Germans had developed rockets. He even went so far as to claim that at the end of the war these would prove to be as non-existent as mare's nests! What is not recorded is what his response eventually was to the discovery that these Vergeltungswaffen actually existed! In spite of being the best known of German secret weapons, the little known fact that it was not Hitler's insistence that the Me262 be able to function as a bomber but the more prosaic reason of the defective design & lack of vital metals that played a more significant role in its inoperability, the life of the Junker's Juno engine being only 15 hours. This book places the German supposed technological superiority in context. These included: * How the British effectively & quickly countered all the German secret weapons as they arose as illustrated by the various types of beams & mines * The fact that Allied air superiority in reality in a large measure was responsible for the German's inability to manufacture & deploy it's secret weapons * The fact that the Me163 was too dangerous & unsuitable as an effective weapon The contextualization of the developments assists in understanding the responses of both sides to the development of technology. In isolation one can call each side short-sighted in a particular response. In reality, there was a broader context placing demands on resources. Hindsight, as they claim, is a perfect science & it applies with equal validity to the development of untested & untried secret weapons. One can equally claim that if the Germans had not halted the development of the He280, they could have overcome the Allied air bombardment but equally a case could be made for the opposite outcome if Frank Whittle had been provided with more copious support for the development of his jet engine. This is one the best books on this subject. (NR KAT. 25)